Marijuana, hemp initiative cleared in Sacramento

WASHINGTON – Marijuana and hemp advocates in California will get another chance to legalize marijuana use in its various forms if a Northern California group can ramp up enough support to put it on next year's ballot.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said last week that the California Cannabis Hemp Initiative 2014 has until Feb. 24 to gather just over 500,000 signatures from registered voters to approve it for a final vote in November of next year.

Berton Duzy, initiative coordinator in Simi Valley, said Tuesday that the group plans to mobilize 3,000 volunteers statewide to gain enough signatures by the February deadline.

“If it makes it to the ballot, then it will be passed,” Duzy said. “This is the first initiative really ever that addresses everything about a prohibition – everything from drug testing to which farmers can grow hemp, everything is addressed here.”

California would be the third state to open the way for recreational marijuana use. Voters in Washington and Colorado approved laws last November, but their initiatives, focused on recreational and medicinal use, were narrow in comparison with California's proposed initiative.

California would legalize all uses for the plant cannabis, from which the drug marijuana is derived. Hemp, the common term for varieties of the cannabis plant, is used for clothing or oil for nutritional purposes; it would also be deregulated.

The initiative will also set a standard for intoxication, akin to alcohol, and will prohibit use for anyone under age 21.

California has been on a long road toward legalizing marijuana since 1996, when marijuana was approved for medicinal purposes. Seven years later, Senate Bill 420 amended the 1996 law to limit the amount of pot a patient can possess. In 2009, State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill to regulate the plant in a similar way to alcohol.

In 2010, Proposition 19 would have legalized marijuana use for people 21 and older; it failed, 46 to 54 percent. In 2012, an attempt to produce a measure for the ballot failed to qualify.

But Duzy said he is confident the new measure will pass the 500,000-signature threshold and win voter approval in November. The group has about $8,000 cash on hand plus $5,000 from one donor to fund the signature drive.

It has yet to enlist the help of national organizations or legislators. Even Ammiano, an outspoken advocate of medical marijuana laws, said he will not endorse the measure until it gains widespread support from the public and he has had a chance to study the specifics.

In the meantime, the Department of Justice released a memo in August saying it would not mobilize any federal law enforcement if small amounts of marijuana were found on private property. For activists, it was seen as a step in the right direction.

Dale Sky Jones is executive chancellor at Oaksterdam University, a nonaccredited, for-profit college in Oakland devoted to teaching students about growing cannabis and issuing state-approved licenses for working at medical dispensaries.

She said California voters and legislators have been warming up to the issue for some time; they just need a push such as California Cannabis Hemp Initiative 2014.

“I think that one of the most important things to realize at this point in time, unlike any other previous point in time in California, is that we have built an unprecedented coalition of individuals and organizations and that is what is ultimately going to make the difference for a safer, better California,” Jones said.